angry tapir writes: "I recently had the opportunity to sit down Charles (Charlie) Pellerin, who was NASA's director of astrophysics when the Hubble Space Telescope launched with its seemingly fatally flawed optical system. Pellerin went on to head up the servicing mission that finally fixed the telescope and for that was awarded NASA's highest honour, a Distinguished Service Medal. Since Hubble he has done a lot of thinking about the problems that led up to the error and how organisations can best avoid making similar mistakes."